Server and Virtualization Data Recovery: RAID, VMware and Hyper-V Scenarios

Quick answer: Data loss on servers is far more complex than a single disk, because RAID arrays, virtual machine disks and snapshot chains are nested together. If your server crashed, VMs will not boot, or the datastore is corrupt, the most dangerous move is a panicked rebuild or scrambling the disk order. Touch nothing, record the disk order and array state. These cases are handled at enterprise level, under NDA, minimizing downtime. Ankara DSET enterprise line: +90 536 662 38 09.

Why servers are different

A desktop has one disk. A server has multiple disks in a RAID, a virtualization layer (ESXi, Hyper-V, Proxmox) on top, and VMs as disk files on top of that. Fixing any broken layer means rebuilding the whole chain in the right order.

Common cases

Multi disk failure (see RAID 5 failure), a wrong rebuild, a corrupt VMFS or Hyper-V volume, a deleted or corrupt VM (VHDX, VMDK), or a broken snapshot chain.

What not to do

Do not start a rebuild, do not scramble disks (number them if removed), do not reinstall over the array. See 9 mistakes that destroy data.

Lab process

We clone each disk first without stressing it, reconstruct the RAID by solving order, stripe size and parity, then analyze the virtualization layer and extract the VMs and their data. Similar to Synology NAS recovery. All under a KVKK compliant NDA. Ankara Hacettepe Teknokent: +90 536 662 38 09.